The Distillation

"Scientists found the drug actually elevates an innate language ability."

Family and her colleagues asked 10 volunteers to come into the lab twice and complete a picture-naming task. In one session, participants received a dose of LSD, while in the other they got a placebo. The dose of LSD was enough to cause psychedelic effects without producing a full tripping experience and the so-called ego-dissolution, Family said. Under the influence of LSD, people seem to have easier access to related words, suggesting that the semantic networks in their brains are highly and widely activated, according to a study published Aug. 18 in Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. “This indicates that their semantic networks might be activated more strongly,” said the study’s lead researcher, Neiloufar Family, from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. “More words are highlighted and competing for production.” In other words, if you think of words and concepts as parts of an interconnected web of ideas registered somewhere in the brain, LSD seems to bring this web closer to the surface of awareness.

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